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An anonymous reader writes "Paypal has quietly killed the Paypal plugin and the related virtual-card service. The service generated on-the-fly, one-time-use credit card numbers. When I called in and inquired about the service, I was told that the service has been discontinued, but may be relaunching something similar depending on interest. They are treating inquiries as a sort of petition, taking down names and contact info. The forums seem to be a lost cause, as no Paypal reps have replied to the numerous posts regarding virtual cards being discontinued. Does anyone know of a good alternative source of one-time-use credit card numbers?"

I can vouch for the Citibank virtual numbers, I have been using it for years. It even works with recurring charges for up to 1 year. You specify the max amount to be drawn over the year. Amazon.com sometimes chokes up when using it but I have never had problems anywhere else.

I wish they could offer the same thing for in-person or over-the-phone purchases. I really don't like having to hand over my credit card to strangers. Perhaps one day security technology will catch up. Anybody could easily come up with a half-dozen ways to improve security in the process. Sure there are obstacles for implementation, but they're far from insurmountable. It seems like the risks and occurrences have to get worse before they get better.

I wish they could offer the same thing for in-person [...]. I really don't like having to hand over my credit card to strangers. Perhaps one day security technology will catch up. Anybody could easily come up with a half-dozen ways to improve security in the process. Sure there are obstacles for implementation, but they're far from insurmountable. It seems like the risks and occurrences have to get worse before they get better.

At least in the US, they don't get a choice, they can take your CC number, but once it comes time to pay they are legally required to take cash. Because you typically pay for said services after you've used them they're debts which means that the company is legally obligated to take cash. Paying ahead of time, they can turn down cash, but once it's a debt they don't get a choice in the matter. If cash is what you want to pay with, cash is what they have to accept.

Q? I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal?

The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."

This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.

you pose a rather valid question. Now, i can understand some businesses 'requiring' bills smaller than 20, because they don't want to keep enough cash in the till to make change for several 100's or 50's, that way if they get robbed, they don't lose as much. however, most of these places *will* take a 100, it just takes 10 minutes for them to make the change because they have to get the manager, etc. Places that refuse cash on the other hand, trouble me.

I wish they could offer the same thing for in-person or over-the-phone purchases.

Nothing stopping you from using the disposable credit card numbers over the phone.

In person - well you could try picking up a mag-stripe writer and using it to write a disposable number to a regular credit card. Just make sure you only swipe that card once before you re-write the mag-stripe with a new number...

If you don't specify a term on the VAN, I think it defaults to the max of a year. You can increase the time and money limits at any time, so theoretically you should be able to keep it going by just adding time as you get close to the end of the term.

Swedbank [swedbank.se] (Sweden) offers customers an unlimited number of virtual Visa cards with a given maximum amount and expiration date. They are debit cards tied to the same account as your real plastic card.

Shopsafe works great, I use it any time I am buying from a small merchant (Newegg and the like I order enough they get to have the real number). It creates the numbers in real time so you just log in to the bank as you are going to check out and make a new number, or add money to a number.

Discover has the same kind of thing, though I've not used it. Looks like the same idea though.

Could you get the IT guys to fix the massive error when entering passwords?

My password is at the limit for the discover card website, which I think was 10 or 12 letters, so my discover password is:abcdefghijkl.

Now if I go to the virtual credit card login, which is the flash based entry as long as I start off with abcdefghijkl, it doesn't matter what I enter after that:abcdefghijkl938498719823 and it still lets me in.

Citibank offers a "Virtual Account Number" service for their credit cards (Mastercard). It works fairly well. You can do one-shot purchases, or recurring purchases with the same merchant only, or even cap the total you're willing to spend via a virtual number over a number of months.

They have a web interface, but you can also download a Java applet that can generate numbers and fill in purchase forms for you.

I dont know about you but my bank account can create VCC's without me even having a credit card. All I need is the debit card and enough cash to actually create the VCC, and of course internet banking enabled. The VCC gets destroyed in a couple of days like normal and the balance amount goes back into your account. Considering that youngsters are advised against taking credit cards, and I haven't this is almost my only option for online shopping.

The advise to youngsters against taking credit cards is flawwed. Because of how the current financial industry and credit reporting works.

If you never get a credit card or loan of any type, you will not have a credit history.
This will be very bad later, when you need to apply for credit or a loan, you will be denied, or require a cosigner, and pay a much higher interest rate..

Unless the youngster is going to be independently wealthy, and never need to borrow money for the rest of their lives (Going to buy your house outright with cash, going to buy all your cars outright with cash, no mortgages, no loans), the sooner you start a credit history, and the higher quality the history you establish, the better (more financially beneficial) terms you will be able to negotiate in the future, when you need a loan.

I would suggest any youngster get at least one credit card, but be very careful and judicious in the management of it.

Even if that means you get a debit card, and leave the credit card locked away in a safe, and only use it once a month.

For the most part, it's beneficial for just about anyone to have at least one CC.

The advise to youngsters against taking credit cards is flawwed. Because of how the current financial industry and credit reporting works.

If you never get a credit card or loan of any type, you will not have a credit history.
This will be very bad later, when you need to apply for credit or a loan, you will be denied, or require a cosigner, and pay a much higher interest rate..

As far as I know that is pretty much a US-only phenomenon. At least in most of Europe, the notion of "positive credit history" is all but unknown, when applying for a loan it doesn't matter if you've ever had a credit card unless you've failed to pay up. In many European countries many people don't have credit cards at all.

A cell phone contract will establish history in the US as well.Any contractual obligation over time whether pre or post paid (I.e. phone Vs. Car loan) will show up on your credit history. So does renting an apartment, paying facilities (gas, electric, cable, phone, etc.)

No, it doesn't. A cell phone contract may require a credit check, but it will only be reported to the credit bureaus if you do not pay. If you get a cell phone and pay it on time, it'll never show up after the initial credit check, which itself will disappear after two years. Student loans, credit cards, store cards, mortgages, etc, all show up. Get a credit card early, use it once every 1-3 months, pay it off when you do use it, and you'll be building a steady history.

I was refused an AMEX card a fee years ago because 7 years prior to that I lost a mobile phone on a contract. At the time I had a very small income and the loss of the phone forced the network to demand payment of the entire remaining 14 months contract period in 1 month. I could not pay. What's funny is this didn't stop me gaining credit with other banks. At the time of rejection I had around 27,000 AUD in credit from different banks and an excellent payment histroy with no debt.

You can also be denied credit despite having a very large net worth if you don't have your name on the prior credit card accounts you have used or if the credit reports have the information wrong. My wife just got turned down asking for credit in an amount that is a rounding error compared to her net worth. But since the credit history doesn't show any of the assets she might have nor does it list her participation in the credit I might have had (she has paid the bills for the last 37+ years) her history/wo

A cell phone contract will establish history in the US as well.Any contractual obligation over time whether pre or post paid (I.e. phone Vs. Car loan) will show up on your credit history. So does renting an apartment, paying facilities (gas, electric, cable, phone, etc.)

Interesting and unbelievable... in most western countries keeping such records would be illegal.

I actually don't recall any of that showing up on my credit history either, and I just had a look at my credit history because I got a home loan. My student loans, car loan, credit cards, and now home loan all showed up (basically as a bunch of check boxes showing if I paid on time or not), and that was it.

As far as I know, cell phone bills and the like don't show up at all. You can use phone bills and the like as proof of address for background checks, if you don't have two forms of photo ID, but that's co

That's interesting. Most of mine did. I've used various carriers over the years.

I had a case of identity theft years ago, and that's how I found out about detail on two of them. Someone went on a buying spree and purchased phones online from a few different carriers. Once I found out about the first ones, I called all the major cell carriers to find out if "I" had an account. The ones who said "yes", I asked to be immediately transferred to their fraud department. One of

In the rest of the world, countries either don't even have a credit reporting system, or if they do, it works from the assumption that you start with GOOD credit history, and the only thing that hurts it are previous debts you have defaulted on. I.e. someone that has never had any credit cards or other debt will be able to get a loan just as easily as someone who has had previous debt, but has paid it off on time etc. The idea of 'building' a credit history is un-necessary - just don't default on debts and you will be fine.

In my country all they do is look at your income, assets, expenses and any records of previous defaults, and make a judgement on that. There is no 'credit score' as such. The US system seems really weird (and unfair!) to me - since I am a person that has never really had any debt and almost never uses credit cards.

It's far worse than you think it is. While we now have the legal right to look at our credit report once a year, we don't have the legal right to look at our credit score without paying for it. And often times that's the only thing the lender looks at. Worse still is that a bad credit report can result in a person being unable to find work, as employers view such people as a risk for theft and fraud.

even more unsettling, is having several checks of your credit score in a short period (less than a month, more than 7ish days) can make it go down. (all checks inside of a particular period, which is around 7 days, all count together as one check against your score, after 7 days, they are counted individually, and each reduce your score by X amount)

As far as I know that is pretty much a US-only phenomenon. At least in most of Europe, the notion of "positive credit history" is all but unknown, when applying for a loan it doesn't matter if you've ever had a credit card unless you've failed to pay up. In many European countries many people don't have credit cards at all.

The UK has been starting to introduce a "credit rating" system (thanks to the same companies in the US flogging their wares over here). It isn't as rigorous or specific as the US one and simply rates the risk. It tends to be some financial activity is good (no matter what type) but late payments or defaulted debt is bad. A lot of it has to do with a verifiable history. When I first moved over here from the US, I had a really hard time because I didn't have a previous address. Once I moved about a year

The UK being the big exception. I always refer to "mainland Europe" when I talk about the banking industry, considering that the UK (and I expect Ireland, but never checked) is roughly the same as the US when it comes to credit cards.

When I first arrived to the UK, it took me about 6 months before my bank (HSBC) trusted me with a credit card. I was making in excess of 30k GBP a year (first job), and never had any overdraft. I did have a whole lot of working expenses (consultant, so travelling around the wor

At least in the US, you're right. Moreover, they will charge you a large deposit upfront if you want to get an Internet, phone, or other service without a score/high score.

My country has a different approach as to credit. It's a database with "faults". If you fail to pay stuff, they can report you. And people querying the database will know how "good payer" you are. This sounds more appropriate for a country with a legal system following the "you're innocent until proven guilty".

Credit cards are so much better than debit cards for online purchases, or anything really. If someone steals money from your debit card, it is your money that is gone. If someone steals money from your credit card, it is someone else's money that is gone.

"That's why debit cards here in Portugal all have a PIN, and almost all the shops have little readers with keypads."

That is the case in the United States too. The difference (apparently) is that in the U.S. a debit card can also be processed like a credit card - no PIN required. I probably shouldn't, but I use my debit card to purchase things online all the time.

More to the point, it's the credit card company's money that is gone, so they are a lot more proactive about hunting down fraud. Most banks don't give a flying crap if someone drains your account of $5,000, but if someone charges $100 at a gas station on another person's card the company is quick to nullify the charge. They usually don't even charge to stop payment, unlike the banks who've been getting really creative with fees lately.

In that respect I have to tip my hat to Capital One. Capital One uses a very tough anti-fraud algorithm on their CCs, I have to call them a dozen or so times to get the block on my card lifted, which is a pain in the ass, but as I've told them each time I'd rather call them and verify things than have to deal with the much bigger headaches that could come should somebody steal my CC number and try to drain me dry.

My main complaint about the card though is that they don't offer me virtual numbers.

"If someone steals money from your debit card, it is your money that is gone. If someone steals money from your credit card, it is someone else's money that is gone."I'm not convinced that you understand how credit cards work, or for that matter, how money works.

Doesn't matter if it's your bank or your credit card company, it's YOUR money that's gone. With a debit card the money comes out of your bank, with a credit card the money initially comes from the credit company, who sends you a bill, and you send

I'm not convinced that you understand how credit cards work, or for that matter, how money works.

And I think you're being willfully obtuse.

Doesn't matter if it's your bank or your credit card company, it's YOUR money that's gone. With a debit card the money comes out of your bank, with a credit card the money initially comes from the credit company, who sends you a bill, and you send them money from your bank. In either case you can file paperwork claiming fraud, and in both cases a valid claim of fraud will result in your money being returned. (specific policies vary by company and bank)

When you receive a bill, there is no force of nature causing you to send payment. Here's how it works with a debit card:

You notice the discrepancy (perhaps because you want to withdraw money you expected to have but don't, in which case it sucks to be you).

You ask the bank to return or restore the money, claiming fraud.

(a) The bank returns the money, or (b) the bank denies the claim.

In case 4(a), you have no access to the money in the time between 3 and 4(a), which could be 10 business days (two weeks). In 4(b), it is up to you to pursue legal action against the bank.

Here's how it works with a credit card:

Money is stolen via your card, being paid from the card company's accounts.

You receive a bill including the fraudulent charge (note: the company is asking you for money, rather than vice versa).

You make a claim for fraud.

You send a payment only for the non-fraudulent amounts.

(a) The company accepts your claim, and that's the end of it, or (b) they deny your claim, so you keep getting bills and other collection action.

In 5(b), it's up to the company to pursue legal action against you, rather than vice versa. In all cases, the money remains in your control at least until the company wins in court. (Of course, you would lose the money with the debit card as well if you lost against the bank in court, but the money would have remained out of your control immediately.)

The point is clear: your money is gone with a debit card in that you lose actual control of it, and have to ask for it back. The card company's money is gone with a credit card because they have to ask you for it back (perhaps not entirely, if they haven't paid the merchant yet, but that's not your concern).

I'm not convinced that you understand how credit cards work, or for that matter, how money works.

It doesn't take a black card to get good response to fraudulent charges on a credit card because federal banking laws very explicitly define what the banks must do and for once the rules are very favorable to consumers instead of the banks. Meanwhile the only rules governing fraudulent debits are arbitrary ones set up by individual banks and the debit networks. Violating a federal law is a huge deal, the banks don't play around with that -- but breaking their own internal policies, the consequences are practically nil, it puts you at the mercy of someone who might just be in a bad enough mood to take it out on you.

Furthermore the previous poster is exactly on the mark about it being the bank's money at risk for fraudulent charges and your money for a fraudulent debit. At best you can expect your bank to refund the lost money and any of their internal fees. But if that fraud caused any of your checks to bounce or your automated payments not to go through you are looking at fees from the payees - returned check and late payment fees - and you have no chance of getting your bank to reimburse those fees since they aren't internal and really are whatever the payee wants to set them at.

No, the only people who should ever use a debit card are the ones who just plain can't qualify for a credit card or are so bad with money that they can't control their spending (and they better be sure not to get so-called "over-draft protection" on those debit accounts because until recently it was impossible to get a debit card without over-draft protection since those over-draft fees are massive cash cows for all banks).

"In the US, Federal law limits you to $50 in exposure to theft of a credit card. With debit cards you are at the mercy of your bank, so I'm glad you are comfortable with yours"

Both Visa and Mastercard have a zero liability policy for unauthorized use of your card, provided you report a lost card within 24 hours. The only difference with a debit card is that you have to wait for your money to be returned to you, because it was taken directly from your account.

Both Visa and Mastercard have a zero liability policy for unauthorized use of your card, provided you report a lost card within 24 hours

This is true, but doesn't help you when someone uses only your NUMBER fraudulently and you don't notice until your statement comes... or worse, when checks start bouncing. How many $35 bounce fees is it worth getting before you start to think that maybe tying a card to your bank account wasn't such a fantastic idea?:)

From my experience generally credit cards do have a few nuances that make them safer than debit for online purchases.Both have zero liability for unauthorized purchases.With some (all?) credit cards you get a satisfaction guarantee for authorized purchases. For example, if you buy a collectible model car online and receive a poor quality, crappy cheap plastic toy, and the company wont do a refund, a credit card likely would refund, while a debit card wouldn"t. Or in another example, if you buy plane ticke

I can walk into my bank and actually talk to someone, can you do that with ANY credit card company?

For one thing, banks are the credit card companies. My Wal-Mart Discover card, for example, says "GE Money Bank" on it. For another, you might not live near any branch of the bank where you have your savings and checking accounts, such as if you have an account at an online bank such as Ally, or if you're in the armed forces and deployed, or if you're away at college.

I'm not convinced that you understand how credit cards work, or for that matter, how money works.

Doesn't matter if it's your bank or your credit card company, it's YOUR money that's gone. With a debit card the money comes out of your bank, with a credit card the money initially comes from the credit company, who sends you a bill, and you send them money[emphasis mine] from your bank. In either case you can file paperwork claiming fraud, and in both cases a valid claim of fraud will result in your money bein

Well, for one thing, Mastercard recently bought Orbiscom. Mastercard sees paypal as a competitor. Since all disposable credit card numbers (including disposable VISA numbers) are handled through Orbiscom's systems Mastercard may have made it prohibitively expensive for Paypal to do business that way.

That's considerably less than the loading some credit-card acquirers gouge their merchants for, by comparison, and which you probably never see.

When other people do it it's "gouging," but your motives are purer than the driven snow.

Color me skeptical. I understand that handling money safely is expensive, and I don't begrudge people making a living off it.

But the 5% has nothing to do with how much merchants have to pay. They're still going to pay fees to their acquirer with your card. If you were selling a regular credit card, you'd charge interest to your customers.

And, yes, customer support and financial security are expensive. You live in a highl

The best thing over all to deal with that is just watch your account carefully. In this day and age of online banking there's no excuse not to check your accounts once a week minimum. The next thing to do is get yourself multiple CC accounts. That way if one is deactivated, you don't have any real problem. Personally I have 4, a visa, a mastercard, a discover card and an american express card. The discover and amex are basically for special deals, since they sign on some merchants to give you bonuses if you

In this day and age of online banking there's no excuse not to check your accounts once a week minimum.

I can't log in to my Target credit card account anymore. Once I enter my username and password, the site prompts me to set up self-service password reset by choosing five distinct "personal security questions" and entering their answers. This wouldn't be a problem, except all the available questions are things that one might find on someone's public Facebook profile. Examples:

(I didn't look at the article before thinking about that. Of course, I was thinking about using a common theme among all three.)

Given that some of those questions are dynamic (e.g. what is your favourite color), it's sometimes hard to remember what should be the correct answer. I've seen people having trouble authenticating through that system, even when they're the ones typing in the answers - not only do they have to remember the answer, but they also have to remember the spellin

I have a Citibank/American Airlines card that has this option. The interface to create the virtual card number is somewhat crappy (flash) but it works. This is probably available on other citibank cards as well.

The Paypal virtual credit card service is not dead. I can still create new virtual credit cards and did just yesterday. It may just be limited to specific people or you just need to know where to click.

I've had what I consider a very bad experience with Paypal and now I only use them begrudgingly if I have no other alternative. I consider their assurances technically accurate but due to their execution to be of no use whatsoever to me. So I treat all transactions put through Paypal as high risk "might not get what you pay for" transactions. If I were looking for a credit card, I'd rather poke out both my eyes than get one with that company. I don't think I'm alone.

"I've had what I consider a very bad experience with Paypal and now I only use them begrudgingly if I have no other alternative."

I've had more "very bad experiences" with Paypal than you can shake a stick at, watching them steal thousands of my dollars over the years using various excuses, and of course they won't provide any evidence as to why I owed them the money. Unfortunately I still use them because they are the only ones. They have the easiest website integration, thousands of programmers know how to setup advanced shopping carts and customers trust them. There's nothing I can do.

I seriously considered google shopping cart but apparently there's just as many complaints again them and there's no 800 number for customer service, everything is by email.

Amazon Payments is a good alternative. Google (as in Google Checkout) has always have had customer service problems, but in terms of easy of web integration and shopping cart setup, I would rank them pretty much on par with paypal.

All I can do is mention www.moneris.com since a friend in the CC industry suggested this fairly recently, towards a charity we're both involved in. Aside from this suggestion to research on my own for our own purposes, I have nothing else to offer you except this simple mention.

I see from their website that they offer a online payment gateway which is nice but I actually don't want customers to enter credit cards on my website.

I know that sounds strange, but the reason is no one trusts the internet unless you're Walmart.com, Amazon.com, etc. If you're JackAndJillsStore.com they're not going to want to put their credit card number on your website no matter what great price or product you offer. By using Paypal or

I don't think there is one, and it's something I've searched for. The other problem is that they've become a household name on the end-user side of things, and most buyers trust them, rightly or wrongly. It's rare to find a customer who refuses to use them. When you do find one, their story is usually pretty bloodcurdling.

I'd like to shuck them as well, but I don't see myself doing it for a long time. I set up a pretty good service (Propay) that enables me to take cards in person at shows and over the phone

You could try contacting your state attourney general. Paypal gave our money back ($1200) when the Ohio attourney general inquired on our behalf. The Washington attourney general seemed interested also, calling us a couple of times, and it appeared likely they would have done something if Ohio hadn't first.

I find Paypal completely unusable as they freeze my account every time I use it. I am always traveling (currently in Kazakhstan) and each time I access the account they see my access as unauthorised because I am in a different country and they freeze my account until I re-authorise it by jumping through a series of hoops. I have spoken to people and complained but they are unable to see my moving around as normal for me. One time, whilst in Azerbaijan, I transferred some money from my bank account to pay

Those who have had a bad experience with Paypal and stopped using them.

Those who haven't had that experience yet.

For me it was a refund over a graphics card from ebay that was dead on arrival. They lied to me about the refund process until the card was returned to the seller and then once it was posted switched their line and insisted that they would never have agreed to a refund. I never used them again.

I use virtual visa card http://www.virtualvcard.com.au/home.aspx [virtualvcard.com.au] dont know if it works in America but it was the only thing i could find at the time. Instead of giving you a one time card number it allows you you to deactivate and reactive the number any time.

Virtual every debit and credit card in Portugal can have access to MBNet [mbnet.pt], a nationwide initiative in which you can have your one time credit card numbers.

We actually have a pretty accessible banking system here in Portugal. We have a state regulated entity called SIBS that pretty much guarantees that every banking system should be able to talk to the others. In practive, this means that every bank has at least one ATM that is compatible with every debit and credit card in the country, and can be used for free, with no taxes for money withdrawal and other operations. It's pretty sweet.

I've been totally satisfied with the Green Dot cards. They're sold under a few names, including the "Walmart Money Card". It's a physical card, so it doesn't totally apply to the question. It costs something like $3 for the card, and you can add cash to it at any Green Dot vendor. (plus a small service fee). Put as much as you're going to spend on it, and use it. If it becomes compromised, cut it up.:)

These gift cards are widely available for purchase everywhere, but there are many problems with them:

1. Fee to buy (usually about $3)
2. Balance is drawn down by "account maintenance" fees after 6 months and expires in about 18 months.
3. Restrictions on how it can be used for items such as restaurant bills (must allow 15% margin for tip?!!)
4. Can't be used in many places that a real Visa can be used

I can't see any good use for them. You'd be wasting your money for small online purchases.

I suspect they'll recycle after a period of inactivity. Either that, or maybe that's why PayPal dropped the program. It was a pretty neat little deal though. I enjoyed it for online purchases. I was buying from a questionable site once. They took my card info, but then didn't allow the transaction to complete (internal error, not a card error). Rather than risking them taking money for a transaction not completed, I canceled the virtual number.

Recycling is key, just as with phone numbers, given the finite (though large) numbering space some of which is given up to structuring that space.

It's good to leave used numbers fallow for as long as possible of course, and there are some thresholds that you probably don't want to undercut such as the maximum time to be sure a card is clear of chargeback and other processing, and get out of any directories/DBs/etc.

And tainted numbers should generally be left for even longer of course (such as a card number